Nine-year-old Shan Rée of West Vancouver, British Columbia, was no stranger to hospitals. Since infancy, she had been admitted two or three times a year for the intravenous antibiotics and intensive...

In February 1995, on the one-year anniversary of his father’s death from Alzheimer’s disease, Larry Ruvo—who directs Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada, the largest distributor in the state—gathered...